1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an additive for fuel and a fuel composition comprising said additive. Fuel includes gasoline, light oil which is useful for a Diesel engine and, heavy oil which is used for an internal combustion engine. The invention provides an improvement in view of cleaning the fuel system and the combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine.
2. Statement of prior arts
It is known that when the fuel system and deposits in the combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine an engine will not perform well and the exhaust gas emitting therefrom, will contain undesirable matters.
Fuel cleaning agents, and in particular, gasoline cleaning agents are added to gasoline for the purpose of removing deposits from the gasoline air intake system, such as the carburetor and intake valves, and preventing the accumulation of deposits, as well as cleaning the inside of the combustion chambers. Deposits that have formed on the intake valves and intake ports cause a decrease in engine horsepower, a worsening of performance and an increase in the amount of exhaust gas. In recent years, the performance capabilities of engines are continuously increasing and as a result, they have become more sensitive to these types of deposits. Further, deposits that accumulate in the injection nozzles of fuel injection engines that have become quite popular in recent years are a particular problem. In other words, since the fuel flowpath in such injection nozzles is quite narrow, if deposits should happen to form on the inside of these flowpaths, the injection pattern of the fuel becomes distorted, causing the appearance of serious detrimental effects such as defective startability, poor operating performance and decreased engine horsepower. In addition, this also brings about other negative effects including poor fuel consumption and increased amounts of exhaust gas.
Various types of fuel additives have been proposed in order to solve these types of problems. As an example, ether amine has been disclosed in the specifications of U.S. Pat. No. 3,849,083 and Patent Journal Patent Disclosure No. SHO 57-24398. Although this ether amine is used as a cleaning agent for the carburetor, its cleaning action on parts of the intake system, other than the carburetor, are small.
Stains, in particular coking, in an injection nozzle of a Diesel engine, also have an influence on performance. Coking makes exhausted gas black, increases the amount of sulfates coming from the sulfur in the fuel and increases the amount of hydrocarbon matters caused by partial combustion of the fuel and the lubricant. In this way, particulates are increased. The Japanese patent publication A 62-68891 discloses the use of an oxyalkylene compound of an alkylamine to solve that problem. In the reference, it is not seen that cleaning in the injection nozzle can be achieved. Further U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,478,096 and 3,637,358 disclose the use of an alkylether amine which is effective in stabilizing the fuel, but does not work for cleaning of the injection nozzle.